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Nebraska Wildflower Field Guide

About 20 years ago, Jon Farrar, one of Nebraska’s preeminent naturalists and photographers published a fantastic field guide to the wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains. Unfortunately, the book sold out within a year and a half and has been nearly impossible to find since then. Finally, after all this time, it has been reprinted, and the new edition is even better than the first.

I was asked to write a review of the new edition for Prairie Fire Newspaper, and was more than happy to oblige (and not just because I got a free signed copy of the book!). The review was published in the April 2012 issue of Prairie Fire, and you can read it here.

If you had Farrar's wildflower field guide, you'd know that this is showy milkweed - not common milkweed - because the flowers are more prominent and have longer "hoods". Not only does the book explain what hoods are, it has excellent photos of both species that make the differences very easy to see.

About Chris Helzer

Chris Helzer is the Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy in Nebraska. His main role is to evaluate and capture lessons from the Conservancy’s land management and restoration work and then share those lessons with other landowners – both private and public. In addition, Chris works to raise awareness about the importance of prairies and their conservation through his writing, photography, and presentations to various groups.
Chris is also the author of "The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States", published by the University of Iowa Press. He lives in Aurora, Nebraska with his wife Kim and their children.

Nice review, Chris ( I even read the paper copy!). I gave a native prairie plant presentation at Finke Nursery here in Lincoln two weeks ago, in conjunction with celebrated the re-release of Jon’s book. Sure, we need large tracts of prairie, but we also need to create awareness for those tracts by getting suburban gardeners thinking prairie plants.